National
Two minor Dalit girls raped, murdered in separate incidents

Two minor Dalit girls were allegedly raped and killed in separate incidents in Haryana, barely a month after a similar case involving a six-year-old girl shook the state.

Police said one of the girls, a 15-year-old school student, had been brutally assaulted and her private parts mutiliated.

The body of the other victim, an 11-year-old girl, was found in a village in Panipat district this morning, a police official said.

The official said she was abudcted by two men last evening when she had gone out of her house to throw garbage in the village dumpyard.

Rahul Sharma, superintendent of police, Panipat, told PTI over the phone that two men, who lived in her neighbourhood, were arrested today for the crime.

After abducting her, the accused took her to a house where they allegedly raped and strangled her. They also burnt her clothes in a bid to destroy evidence, the SP said.

The body of the 15-year-old girl, who had been missing since last Tuesday after she left home for tuition classes, was found near a canal at Budha Khera village in Jind district's Safidon town yesterday, the police said.

The girl, who belonged to a village in Kurukshetra district, had been brutally assaulted, an official said.

Her private parts were mutilated and some of her vital organs had been ruptured, the official said.

She was a Class 10 student, the police said.

Two special investigation teams (SITs) under DSP-rank officers have been constituted to probe the incident, the Jind police said.

A hunt was on for the accused and a rape-and-murder case registered after a post-mortem report confirmed the assault, Sunil Kumar, who is heading one of the SITs, said over the phone today.

The two incidents come close on the heels of another incident last month, in which a six-year-old girl was violently raped and killed in Haryana's Uklana area in Hisar district.

The brutal rape of the six-year-old, and the recent savage incidents, were a stark reminder of the December 16, 2012, incident in Delhi, in which a physiotherapy intern was raped by a group of a men in a moving bus and a rod inserted into her body. She died in a hospital 13 days later.